


Areopagus

by odiko_ptino



Series: Featured Character: Ares [3]
Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: I'm not sure if the rape tag is warranted or not, but it's a heavy topic and i'd rather be safe than sorry, no explicit description at all, this is about the aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 20:21:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17029368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odiko_ptino/pseuds/odiko_ptino
Summary: Ares is tried before all the gods for murdering his daughter's attempted rapist.





	Areopagus

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still not totally satisfied with this one.. I may rewrite. If you have (constructive) suggestions I'd like to hear them!

Ares stands before them, the only way he knows how: defiantly, angrily.  His anger at the moment is silent and scowling.  He is standing before them, in chains, because of his anger of only a few days ago, which was furious and fatal.

His defiance is clear even though he is in chains.

Alcippe is not present.  The trial was not thought, at first, to concern her, other than peripherally.

—————-

Artemis is grim.  There are many conflicting thoughts in her mind now, watching her half-brother face Zeus and the council.

She remembers those shitheads Actaeon and Orion, and others.  Those two fucking Aloadai, who’d captured Ares… who was trying to defend Hera, and Artemis herself, from a similar threat.

But she also remembers Callisto…Aura… and others.  Artemis obviously has committed no rape, but if the question answered today is whether the man is accountable, rather than the woman…

Then Artemis’ hands are not clean.

But she has to defend the sanctity of her domain.  Once a woman’s virginity is gone, it’s gone.  The woman’s been irrevocably claimed by men at that point; she can’t come back to Artemis’ retinue, and Artemis can’t help her after that… right…?

—————

Beside Zeus, Hera gazes at her son.

She’s mostly unconcerned with the finer details, since she already has no intention of allowing Ares to be thrown into Tartarus, or whatever foolish blustering threat her husband and their brother have declared.  Let the storm-gods storm; she will keep their wilder justices in check.

She had entertained the possibility that Ares might be required to serve Poseidon as penance, or some mortal king, much as Apollo or Poseidon himself had once done, in order to set things right.  And at first, that seemed to be a foregone conclusion.  But the mood has shifted among the council, which… is unexpected.

Alcippe was unmarried.  No violation of a wedding oath occurred, so Hera’s direct interest is limited and pre-established laws don’t really encompass the girl’s violation.

It’s unusual that Ares would have taken such an interest in a mortal daughter; so some of Poseidon’s rage seemed warranted.  After all, who could expect it to occur to Halirrhotius, to ask Ares for permission to bed his daughter?

Ares had spoken, voice tight with anger.  “He never asked her, either.”

Well, why should he?  The man pursues; the woman either flees or embraces.  That’s life.

And yet… Porphyrion.  That had been a close call for Hera.  If there had been another goddess of marriage, witnessing Hera’s struggle with Porphyrion, if Zeus had not flung his bolt in time to kill the giant…

I would have had the woman destroyed, Hera thinks.  Hmm.

———-

Hermes is thinking now of Tanagra:  a nymph, the daughter of a river god.  Hermes had participated in a raid, wherein he, Apollo, Zeus, and Poseidon had sneaked away Tanagra and her eight sisters from their father.  It had actually been a light-hearted affair, and the girls had enjoyed themselves.  No hard feelings, that Hermes was aware of.  But he remembers that Ares had found Hermes shuttling away a squealing Tanagra, and had actually challenged Hermes to a fistfight.

Hermes had thought at the time that Ares wanted in on the fun.  Ares had fought brutally, but lost, and refused to speak to him for months afterwards.  Hermes had assumed he was jealous that Hermes got to have awesome sex with a hot nymph, and Ares hadn’t.  Now he wonders if Ares had been fearful for the girl.

He also remembers Apemosyne, another consensual roll in the hay.  Apemosyne had been traveling with her brother on the road, and as the god of travelers, it had been Hermes’ pleasure to sneak her away for a blessing.  She’d been a lot of fun.  They’d kissed afterwards and when he told her to remember him, she’d teased that he might have to find her again to remind her.

When her brother had asked her where she’d been, she’d answered honestly, still feeling the rush from her afternoon with a god.  Her brother had called her a whore and kicked her to death on the spot.

There’s a danger, to women who sleep with men, whether they say yes or no.  It’s just dawning on Hermes now, but clearly Ares has always been aware.

——————–

Apollo’s face is passive.  He’s had his share of indiscretions, but fewer than people suppose – his sister Artemis is one powerful deterrent, but for the most part, those of his lovers who are unwilling typically manage to escape him.

He has a long list of nymphs, mortals, and goddesses alike who have rejected him in increasingly ridiculous ways.  Persephone ran away to be Queen of the Land of the Dead.   Bolina threw herself off a cliff.  Daphne… sweet, beautiful Daphne, begged to Gaia to be turned into a tree, rather than endure Apollo’s embrace.

Apollo had taken these rejections as insults… which is largely how they were interpreted by the other gods, as well; a running joke on Olympus.  Helios in particular thinks it’s hilarious.

Granted, Ares is dumb as a rock and stalks the world looking for reasons to start a fight.  But his willingness to go up against his better, to challenge the Lord of the Sea on behalf of his daughter when she pleaded for him to help – it gives Apollo pause.  He considers, for the first time, that maybe Daphne didn’t turn into a tree just to insult him.

—————-

Demeter has never taken a consort, though Poseidon came close.  Lovers?  Yes, certainly.  Many, in fact.  She takes them happily, for the most part; it’s an aspect of her role of fertility goddess that she greatly enjoys.  She takes a young man – or even a young woman, sometimes, for the hell of it, though nothing fertile comes of such a union – and they have their fun and part their ways and Demeter’s fertile body provides a child.  More than she’s even bothered to tell Zeus or Hera about.

She’s had many, many lovers.  The only goddess more sex-positive than Demeter is Aphrodite.  And yet even Demeter has been forced.  By Poseidon himself, in fact.  He had come to her when she was wandering the barren earth in misery, still trying to find her lost daughter, and forced himself upon her when sex was the last thing she wanted.  She’d wept throughout the affair; he’d seemed annoyed and bewildered.  She’d enjoyed herself the previous time they’d been together; Poseidon had apparently thought this would cheer her up.

It would have been impossible for her to argue her case, so she didn’t bother:

1)      Demeter’s not married, so no marriage oaths were violated.

2)      She’d had sex with Poseidon plenty of times before with no complaints.

3)      She was too depressed to even care as much as she should.  Who could care about anything, when Persephone was missing?

It’s just the way of things.  And ultimately, she cared for her children by the rape as much as she cared for any of her other children – which was to say, she adored them – so what was the problem, exactly?

Ares, of all people, is putting his finger on it: Poseidon didn’t care if she wanted it or not.  He took from her without concern for her happiness or well-being.

Demeter stands, waiting only a moment for Poseidon to trail off in surprise, and begins to speak in Ares’ defense.  She may not be known for her eloquence.  She’s a brash and simple woman of action, not words, but she feels an urgent need to find her voice now.

————————-

Hestia is mostly silent as she watches.  She knows all of these gods and goddesses; all are welcome at her hearth, and all open their hearts to her.  She has a pretty good idea how all of them are reacting to this moment, and is stirred to see that the trial of her nephew is slowly starting a revolution in all their minds.  She doesn’t think it will happen immediately.  But Ares’ willingness to go on trial before them has started them all to reconsidering.

She’s already decided that Ares will be the first welcomed to her hearth after this is done, but for Demeter’s bravery in coming forth to say, “Yes, me too,” Hestia will embrace her warmly.

For her own part, she agrees fully with Ares’ stand.  Hestia remembers that night, with Priapus.  She remembers that agonizingly long moment of terror, the horror that her body might be taken from her, the fury and humiliation that for all she’d accomplished in her life, everything she was, could be reduced to just an available body for a man to shove into.

Unfortunately, it seems that gods and mortals alike have difficulty imagining the unimaginable, and have to wait until it either happens to them, or someone else jolts them out of their haze.

———————-

Yes, it is her lover standing before her on trial, and Aphrodite has no intention of voting against him.  She knows Ares better than any other god around her; she has full confidence that if he spilled blood outside of the battlefield, then there was justifiable purpose behind it.  Ares usually stores up his anger and frustrations and vents them in war against other soldiers; he never targets an individual for his wrath.

But her vote alone won’t save Ares, and she follows along with their arguments with white-gripped knuckles.  Demeter is speaking now, empathizing with Alcippe and defending Ares.

It’s curious.  Like her son, Eros, Aphrodite has difficulty understanding why it is that men and women, gods and mortals, struggle so much when it comes to love and sex.  To her mind, it shouldn’t be so burdened with obligation and - and significance.  In this respect, she would theoretically side with the men in these rape cases – love should be easy, love should be casual!

And even if the sex is unwanted – why on earth should one grieve and carry on?  Look elsewhere for better love, better sex.  She’d always thought that was Demeter’s view, too.

But that said, she certainly agrees that love should be consensual.  Perhaps women protest too much; but rape is the wrong solution.  Maybe it would be easier for women to agree to sex if, legally, they were allowed to agree, rather than just aiming her charms at the man she liked, and her scowls at the men she didn’t, and hoping for the best.

She sighs.  Pandora kind of shut down that idea.

————————

Hephaestus runs his thumb over the head of his cane.  He and Ares are not yet the paragon of brotherly love, and probably never will be.  Hephaestus still feels an admittedly unfair anger that Ares has led this charmed life up on Olympus, revered as a god from the moment of his birth.

For his part, Ares has some kind of anger towards Hephaestus as well, which Heph chalks up to jealousy that Aphrodite married him and not Ares.  A lot of gods have made comments along those lines: “congratulations… damn, I wish it could have been me” is a weird thing to say at a man’s wedding.

Ares keeps hanging out in his forge… it’s so fucking awkward.  At the end of the day, Heph just doesn’t like Ares, and his anger about the marriage doesn’t say a favorable lot towards his respect for another man’s business.

He sighs.  Hephaestus doesn’t feel he can weigh in on this one.  He’s clearly biased against the defendant, and honestly, he’s been so sheltered from normal social interactions between men and women that he probably wouldn’t even recognize an illicit sexual affair if he saw one.

It’s a problem.  Maybe it’s good that he knows it, but as the saying goes, you can name the tune a thousand times and not make it go away.  He can’t possibly trust his own feelings in this case; he’ll vote with the crowd.

————–

He’s a late addition to Olympus – not the last immortal, since there are several who have joined the pantheon after him, and probably more to come.  But it’s looking as though Dionysus will be the final deity to sit on Zeus’ High Council, and he came a long time after things had been established on Olympus.

Dionysus was raised as a girl, and is just as intimately aware of the threats against a woman as any of the goddesses present.  He has a unique advantage, as well, in seeing his social ability to choose a lover go from zero to 100% once he presented himself as male, and sees the unfairness of it.

It’s… extremely regrettable, then, that once he was permanently identified as a male god, he sometimes abused his new privilege.  Yes, he was only following the ways of the world as they had been established long before his apotheosis, but he should have known better.  Yes, he was under the influence of alcohol and madness at the time, but he still should have known better.  He was a woman before he was a man or a god, and he betrayed his first community.

So he’s glad that Ares took the first step.  Ares, god of courage, who did the unpopular thing because he knew it was right, and opened the door for Dionysus to start to right wrongs.

Dionysus waits until Demeter has said her piece before he stands to defend Ares as well.  As he speaks, he sees the faint bewilderment on the faces of the other gods and thinks to himself that he may need to step up to his duties as the god of madness – or specifically, its opposite: mental health.  There are a lot of individuals here in need of therapy.

———–

Zeus listens closely to the arguments for and against his son.  He and Poseidon – probably all the gods present – had thought this would be a fairly straightforward trial.  Both of the brothers are shocked to find that it’s going unexpectedly.  Demeter spoke; then Dionysus; then Hermes added a story of how Ares has felt passionately about this for years; and then Hestia (!!) chimed in to softly agree and remind everyone of how close she’d come to being a victim as well.

This is troubling.  He can see it on everyone’s faces; they’re disturbed.  He is, too.  Like most other gods he knows, Zeus prefers a willing lover.  He enjoys seeing a positive effect on his partner; enjoys knowing that someone is taking pleasure in his attentions and his company.  But there is a long, long list of names that he remembers who had run from him.  And although the other gods may complain of his judgement at times, Zeus does take this role seriously, and he feels a deep uneasiness at the implications of these testimonies.

Because the trial has evolved now from its original question of whether a crime had been committed against Poseidon or Ares.  The question being considered now is: was a crime committed against Alcippe?

Ugh.  Leave it to Ares to bring an element of chaos with him wherever he goes.  He and Eris really are two peas in the same damn pod.  Zeus had hoped this occasion would prove to be an opportunity to do something to bring Ares to heel – his son could frankly use the discipline.  But Zeus has to acknowledge that the person on trial is no longer Ares.  He isn’t sure who is on trial now – Halirrhotius, perhaps, and yet the demigod is dead.

So he stands up.  This discussion bears consideration, but it’s become ridiculous to leave Ares in chains.  The consensus is clear on this much.  He doesn’t even glance at Poseidon, though he will still speak to him afterwards – however judgement falls on Halirrhotius, the loss of a son is painful for anyone.

————

Pandora.

That’s what Athena’s been thinking about for the last several minutes.  Pandora, her greatest miscalculation.

It had been her suggestion that Pandora be a woman.  It had seemed logical to her at the time.

Zeus had gathered the gods and announced that he wished to create a trial for humanity.  This was due to their illicit gift of fire, which had so enraged and concerned Zeus – they received a godly gift, and yet had done nothing to earn it.  Gods were afforded greater privileges and luxuries because they had greater burdens than the humans.  The world literally relied on their efforts in order to exist.  And mortals had the audacity to take fire from Prometheus and coast through life with no effort, while the gods worked for them?

He had fought off his initial inclination to smite as many of them as he could, and the trial was decided upon.  They could keep the fire, and by use of this, might eventually work their way up to a state comparative to the gods – but, to test their worth, evils would be released into the world.  This was the tradeoff.  Mortals could advance, but only with effort.

Hephaestus had been tasked to create a human form, that would secretly enter among the other mortals and release the evils.  Athena suggested it should be a woman, and beautiful at that.  The combination of seeming vulnerability and bewitching beauty would teach the mortals to be cautious of judging by appearances.

It still makes sense to her.  It should have been a good idea.  Unfortunately, the mortals interpreted Pandora to be proof that women were the source of all evil and misery in the world.  They use it as justification for controlling women, and blaming them for all ills.

It’s infuriating in how patently incorrect and willfully malicious the interpretation is.  Zeus only shakes his head sympathetically when she complains – he knows well by now, how his will can be ‘interpreted’ by those with an agenda.  Inserting himself in mortal politics is his least favorite responsibility.

But she goes from feeling infuriated to feeling sick with guilt after an argument with Poseidon.  After she’d laid into him with anger about his treatment of Medusa.

He’d snarled back that maybe he’d made one woman unhappy, but it wasn’t Poseidon who made the entire female condition as miserable as it was.

And this is true.  Neither he, nor Ares, had anything to do with Pandora.  In Ares’ case, specifically, he refused.  If Medusa – and any other woman – is held prisoner by her own female body, it’s partly the fault of Athena’s terrible misjudgment.

Is she responsible for every rape?  No – of course not – this sort of thing happened before Pandora, and it certainly wasn’t her fault that men chose to interpret Pandora that way.

But she didn’t push as hard as she should have to undo the damage of the error.  It’s the way of the world now – women are property, meant to be controlled, and she had only huffed about it.  What else could she do?  It was the status quo now.

It had never occurred to her to simply reject the logic and start punching offenders before they even got a chance to finish the deed – or to train up an entire tribe of warrior women, for that matter.  It certainly never occurred to her that she could risk the scorn of all Olympus to do something like that.

It occurs to Ares in seconds, apparently.

The votes have been collected, now: they are all in agreement.  At least, regarding the original question, of whether Ares was justified in committing the crime.  He is acquitted.  As to the nebulous secondary issue raised today, no one seems certain.

Zeus is still stone-faced and grim.  Athena knows there’s certainly more than enough other problems here – Poseidon’s son is dead, and now all the Olympians are forced to reckon with their own complicity in the plight of women – but she wishes Zeus could have managed to look happier that he doesn’t need to throw his first-born son into Tartarus.  Hera looks pleased, at least, so that’s something.

Zeus is going to unchain Ares, but Poseidon stands.

“Brother,” Poseidon interjects.  “Permit me to unchain him, instead.”

Startled silence falls over the group, at this new development.  Zeus looks faintly suspicious – but then waves his hand in assent.  After all, Poseidon had acquitted Ares as well.

———-

Poseidon approaches his chained nephew.

Almost immediately after he’d angrily gone to Zeus to petition a grievance, he had regretted his haste.  As usual, for him, his temper had gotten the best of him.  He hadn’t realized Alcippe was Ares’ daughter, for one thing, and as soon as he’d found that out, it was harder to stay angry with him for interceding.

But over the course of the trial, he had come to realize that Alcippe being his daughter may have made it more personal for Ares… but he might have interceded for her regardless.  Certainly Hermes’ testimony seems to indicate as much, when Ares had fought him on behalf of the nymph Tanagra.  

Poseidon keeps thinking of the argument he’d had with Athena… after Medusa left.

He rests his hand now on the heavy chain wrapped around Ares’ wrists.  Ares is watching him warily, red eyes burning, posture defiant.  

Poseidon speaks softly, just for the two of them to hear: “Tell me, nephew.  If it had been me, instead of Halirrhotius.  Would you have attacked me?”

“If I’d had to die trying, yeah,” Ares replies without hesitating.  He’s acknowledging that Poseidon would probably have destroyed him.  Interesting, for someone said to be clouded over with the red fog of violence.  Ares seems to be quite clear-eyed on a few matters.

“I see,” is Poseidon’s only reply, unchaining Ares.

————————

The councils adjourns with little fanfare.  Ares stalks off almost immediately, not even stopping to speak to any of the other gods.  It’s impossible to tell if he’s angry about the trial, or just… angry because he’s Ares.  Nothing about Ares’ demeanor or personality seems to be any different for having gone on trial today.

Not so for everyone else.  The other gods disperse as well, murmuring quietly to each other of unrelated things.

They do not reconvene on the topic broached today for many, many years.  But as Hestia notes to Ares later, when she invites him to her hearth for hot cocoa and sweet bread… the spark was lit today, and for a council of eternal gods, that’s better than she’d ever hoped.


End file.
